SaaS / Cadence

Dunning

The automated process of recovering failed credit-card payments through retries, customer notifications, and (eventually) account suspension.

What it actually means

Dunning is the operational process of handling failed subscription payments. When a customer's card is declined (expired card, insufficient funds, fraud flag), the SaaS platform must decide: when to retry the charge, how often to email the customer, what message to send, when to escalate, and when to suspend the account. Smart dunning recovers 30-50% of declined payments that would otherwise become churn. Bad dunning (too aggressive = customer feels harassed, too passive = revenue silently leaks).

Distinguishing it from look-alikes

"Transparent dunning" is the customer-friendly version: clear messaging about the failed payment, easy update flow, retry on a sensible schedule, no surprise suspensions. "Aggressive dunning" emails daily, suspends after 3 days, ruins the customer relationship. Cadence ships with transparent dunning by default; the coach's clients see polite, branded communication when their card fails — never alarming or punitive.

Examples

Day 0 — first decline

Charge fails. System sends polite "your card was declined, please update" email.

Day 3 — retry

Card retried automatically. If success, recovered. If fail, second email.

Day 7-14 — escalation

Multiple retries spread out, each followed by clear customer email.

Day 21+ — pause access

If still unrecovered, gently pause access (not delete) with re-activation flow ready when payment resumes